12 Hours
by conmanay
Summary: 12 Hours, that's all it took for the world as we knew it to end, but as the old world ended, a new, much stranger one took its place. (real world story)
1. prologue

**Prologue**

**Detonation**

* * *

**São Tomé and Príncipe, 11:05**

* * *

The island of São Tomé and Príncipe was quiet, at 11:05 PM local time nearly every living being was asleep. That was aside from a group of men in a warehouse, a group of private security contractors and the man who hired them.

The man had blond hair and golden eyes, his long white lab coat covered a simple black uniform with purple outlines. The only thing that stood out about his appearance was a strange blue cowlick that went from the top of his head. His lab coat had gauntlets with touch screens to control whatever tech he wished.

"I must see to my work in the back room, check in with the outside patrols every 10 minutes, if anything happens activate the floodlights outside and barricade the doors, understood?" Colress asked.

"Copy that, squads 4, 5 and 5 commence outer patrol, squads 1, 2 and 3 with me" the commander ordered.

As the men began to patrol outside one of soldiers grabbed the commander by the shoulder and asked "are you sure this guy isn't a nut case?"

"What makes you think that?" The commander asked.

"His outfit alone gives me the impression of that, and having us armed to the teeth just to guard a warehouse on a tiny African island? Something's not right about this" his subordinate replied.

"Eh, so what if he's crazy, he paid us our usual fee in advance and promised us triple our usual rate after tonight" the commander reminded him.

"Payday is a payday I guess.." the mercenary admitted before walking off…

Outside of the warehouse, from within a small row of bushes, 6 soldiers in full body armor were waiting for their leader's go. They had night vision goggles and assault rifles. The patches on their shoulders had the letters M.R.I.A

"Sir, the patrols are rounding the building and finishing their third sweep" one soldier said, they had memorized the guard's patterns and were ready to engage.

"Spilt up, three years of you will engage from the east side of the building and the other three from the west" their leader ordered.

"Affirmative, Alpha and Bravo teams moving now" the soldier said as they split up to surround the building.

"You ready Connor?" Charlie Mason asked.

"I've been ready for 27 years, Colress has managed to evade us for long enough" Connor scoffed. While he and Jake usually left missions to the alpha level agents, this was a special mission that the director and Connor himself were overseeing.

Colress had escaped the Icarus dome and gone underground, stealing tech and DNA samples from around the multiverse. The M.R.I.A was formed to combat threats like him a mere 5 years ago, they had dealt with minor incidents but Colress had remained at large despite their best efforts. He was always one step ahead, predicting every move they made and was always in the shadows, using thugs or mercenaries for his dirty work. He hardly ever stayed anywhere for more than a month to avoid detection. Which is why this hideout was particularly concerning.

Whatever he was planning here was worth risking capture and execution. Connor had made it clear that if they couldn't apprehend him they would execute him on the spot. This world was completely void of Pokémon at all and no traces could be left of his presence.

"Alpha and bravo in position Director" the teams confirmed.

"Lethal force is authorized, weapons free" Charlie ordered.

With a hail of lead the teams opened fire, lighting up the night as they gunned down the mercenaries.

"Tangos down, moving to breach" the soldier's said as they began to stack up at the door, before they could plant the C4, Connor stopped him and said "their is a squad of mercy inside, they'll gun us down the second the door blows, let me open it, be ready to follow" Connor explained as he held out his hands and channeled his psychic power, with a thrust of his hand he blew the reinforced steel door in, crushing the mercenaries underneath it.

"As the team entered the warehouse Jake looked at Connor surprised and said "wow, your not pulling any punches today are you?"

"No, no I'm not" Connor said as the soldiers came to the door to the back room. However thanks to a psychic blocking field, Connor was unaware of the danger right behind the door. The soldiers opened it, but just as they entered Connor noticed the tripwire.

"No don't…." was all Connor could say before a soldier tripped the wire, unleashing a huge explosion, killing all of the soldiers and knocking Jake and Connor on their backs. The durability of Legendary Pokémon leaving them relatively unharmed from the blast.

"Shit, come on, he's gonna make a break for it!" Charlie yelled as the sound of a teleporter hit their ears.

As they arrived however they saw something unbelievable, Colress was on a raised platform with what looked like a metal obelisk and a teleporter shooting a beam into the sky.

"What have you done?" Connor asked as the device began to count down from 3 minutes

"I've won, that's what I've done, with the wormhole opened my DNA bomb will turn everyone in the multiverse into shifters, that includes the legendary DNA I saved from Giovanni's database" Colress said proudly.

Charlie shifted into a Raikou and tackled Colress, pinning him under his massive paw.

"Turn it OFF" Charlie threatened with bared fangs.

"I can't, I locked myself out of the system. As a shifter it won't affect me but there's no stopping this!" Colress explained.

"How do we contain it, TELL US NOW" Connor demeaned as the countdown read 2 minutes and 45 seconds.

"If you destroy the wormhole generator it will contain it here, but everyone the excess energy will change this world's inhabitants DNA completely and permanently" Colress confessed.

"NO, THIS CANNOT HAPPEN!" Connor yelled as Charlie shifted back and cuffed Colress. He desperately tried to pull the device off its base, the illusion around his arms dissipating from the effort he was giving, but even the physical strength of a psychic augmented Latios's arms couldn't budge the magnetic clamp.

Colress smiles and said "too bad, you're too late to save another world, I am interested to see what choice you make though. Will you choose the first solution and sacrifice this world or let it go off and allow every world to change for the better?"

At that moment, something in Connor snapped, all of the rage of the situation combined with the guilt of the entire world's population changed unwillingly on his mind broke the self control he had developed. For the first time in almost 80 years, Connor lost control of his actions.

With a bloodthirsty scream and a single motion of his clawed arm he relieved Colress of his head, his body falling to the floor limp.

Charlie's jaw dropped, he had never seen Connor kill someone in cold blood like that, he knew that Connor had to be incredibly distraught to lose it like he just did.

Connor took a deep breath and deactivated the wormhole generator, containment was the only option.

As the countdown reached 1 minute, Connor turned to Charlie and said "this isn't a good choice, but it is the right choice"

Jake nodded and opened a portal, there was nothing more that they could do.

Jake walked through, Connor took one last look at the device before entering the portal as well.

The device activated, the blast vaporizing everything in a 2 miles radius from the sheer power output. The blast caused two beams of energy to shoot in the north and south, then they formed a wall of energy that began to circle the globe at an obscene speed. It was over, Earth 161 would never be the same….

**Author's Note-Welcome to 12 hours, a mostly new story. It takes place within the wider multiverse i've created but this chapter will likely be the only time Connor and his organization appear, I wanted to keep the focus on this Earth. Colress chose this island because like in real life, it's pretty much as close as you'll get to the centermost part the world, right on the equator and the zero ****latitude line. Leave a review if your excited to see what's next!**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**The City of light**

* * *

**Nathan**

* * *

As the streets of Paris began to quiet, a lone man was walking to his favorite restaurant, thé Chez la Vieille. It was late, but the restaurant was open past midnight and he needed something to eat after how long his class ran. If there was one thing he hated about his semester abroad it was the time changes, not only did he have trouble adjusting to the time zone but his history professor insisted on studying with the class. In her own words, if you wanted an evening class then you would wait until you finished your study guide. Needless to say he was looking forward to going home next week.

At 5 foot 9, with blue eyes and black hair, Nathan Aldrich was an admittedly average boy from Buffalo, New York. He had celebrated his 18th birthday at home before heading to France for his 2020 semester, thanks to being bilingual he had gotten a scholarship. His mother was from Calais and had helped him prepare.

Nathan went into the restaurant, finding his favorite waiter Victor cleaning his last table for the night.

"pouvez-vous toujours me servir quelque chose à manger?" Nathan asked.

"For my favorite American, I'm sure I can find something, take a seat," Victor said as he motioned to the nearest table.

He poured Nathan some wine and headed to the kitchen, as Nathan drank the sweet red liquid he mused on the fact that he wouldn't be allowed to have wine when he went home. He was still three years from the U.S drinking age.

One of the many things he would admittedly miss about his time in Paris, it had been an incredible experience, but like all good things, it had to come to an end. Hopefully, his mom would take him to Calais as she promised a few years back.

Victor came back and said "your in luck, Gaston has two different options for you, Soupe à l'oignon or Coq au vin"

"I'll take the soup," Nathan replied.

"Excellent choice" Victor commented as he put a napkin and silverware on the table and headed back to the kitchen.

As Nathan waited, he took a moment to admire the illuminated streets of Paris, it was called the city of lights for a reason and it was truly beautiful with the streets vacant alowing the warm glow of the lights to shine unobstructed.

As Victor sat his soup down, Nathan heard it. A buzzing sound that was growing larger. He turned to Victor and asked, "do you hear that?"

"It's coming from outside, let me look" Victor replied.

As Victor opened the door and turned south, his gasped, he gave one last look at Nathan, his eyes were full of pure terror. Before screaming and running down the street, as if he was running from something far, far away.

Nathan got up and went outside, he chased Victor down, worried about his friend. His tunnel vision was too focused on Victor to see what he was running from.

As he caught up to Victor, he was sucking wind, needless to say his lackluster physical strength was showing Victor was fumbling for the keys in his car.

Nathan was about to open his mouth when a purple light glowed on Victor's face, like when a car's headlights were approaching.

Nathan turned around just in time to see a massive wall of purple light, piercing the ground and thousands of feet tall consuming Paris, it happened so fast that he didn't even have time to scream as the wave engulfed him, the purple energy blinding him for a split second.

Once he could see again, he felt a stinging pain in his mouth, like he had been chewing on a rusty wire. He turned to Victor and saw the wave of energy shooting off into the distance.

Then a searing pain caused him to double over, as if his entire body was on fire. He felt every single nerve pulsing and every pore on his skin throbbing at once. He was seeing spots as he looked at Victor who had also doubled over in agony.

He swore he was hallucinating, but it looked as though blue scales were appearing on Victor's arms. Before he could witness any more Victor began to vanish, his body dissolving in a purple flash but his face still emoting the whole time.

Nathan had no time to process Victor vanishing as his already agonizing pain grew worse. His clothes began to tighten as he grew in height, jet black scales consuming his flesh, his skull growing with horrid cracking sounds and forming into a short, draconian head with sharp teeth and red eyes. At the end of his head was a thundercloud-like crest tipped with light-blue coloration.

His clothes nearly disintegrated from his new size, now over nine feet tall and his body bulging with muscles. His beefy arms extenuate into splayed, seemingly webbed, somewhat baseball-mitt-like formations, with three-clawed, dark-colored hands on the undersides. His body was turning rigid in places, like armored plates.

His transformation finished with new wings forming a fanned, splayed, seemingly webbed shape with a small "wing-spike" on one edge. They looked a little small for a creature of his new size. The final new addition being a massive, round, conical and spiked tail formation, likened to an electricity generator, with a black inner portion and bands on the tip of the outside portion.

With a deafening roar the new Zekrom unleashed a torrent of blue lightning around him before passing out, the energy of the transformation stripping him of consciousness as fast as the wave had come and gone.

Among the many things Nathan didn't know when he passed out was the fact every living thing in Paris had been transformed, humans, cats, dogs and birds.

The energy wave continued its destructive path, picking up speed until it was moving at over 1,000 miles per hour. Soon the entire Southern Hemisphere and the rest of the world would be affected. As Colress had estimated, the wave would cross over the entire earth in a little over 12 hours, the two waves meeting each other in the North Pacific Ocean and crossing over slightly before dissipating, leaving an entirely new world in earth's place….

* * *

**Author's note- Tell me what you think? I've got a lot of empty spaces going forward between main events and if you want me to incorporate a side character PM me with the following details, the next chapter with an opening for new characters will be in Manhattan. **

**Name**

**Age**

**Personality**

**Backstory **

**Pokemon form**

**I'd like to clarify some things about this wave to avoid questions down the road. If you have any questions besides the ones below feel free to PM me.**

**All humans and animals were converted, those who became water Pokémon like Victor were transported to the nearest body of water automatically. There are about 10,000 weaker legendaries worldwide(Entei, Raikou, Suicune, Kanto birds, Swords of justice, Lati, Heatran) that may seem like a lot but considering the earth's population of 7 billion it isn't all that much. If you want a new character to be one of these its fine.**

**Only one of the following(thus off limits for new characters) **

**1\. Mew **

**2\. Mewtwo**

**3\. Lugia**

**4\. Ho-oh**

**5\. Regigigas**

**6\. Kyogre**

**7\. Groudon **

**8\. Rayquaza**

**9\. Tornadus **

**10\. Thundurus**

**11\. Landorus **

**12\. Zekrom **

**13\. Reshiram**

**14\. Xerneas**

**15\. Yveltal**

**16\. Zygarde(dogs, snake and complete forms all one person)**

**17\. Lunala**

**18\. Solgaleo**

**19\. Zacian**

**20\. Zamazenta**

**Some legendary Pokémon omitted because of these reasons **

**1\. Regi's made by regigigas **

**2\. Lake guardians only 1 of each in entire multiverse(lakes are portals to their rifts)**

**3\. Creation trio-only one of each in their own dimensions**

**4\. Kyurem-Reshiram and Zekrom just appeared into existence via DNA bomb and thus never split to leave Kyurem behind.**

**5\. Eternatus (never arrived via meteor)**


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

** Awakening**

* * *

**Nathan**

* * *

As Nathan was slowly coming too, he felt wind blowing on his face, the kind that blew through Paris's side streets on mornings before a rainy day. That was odd, he remembered finishing his class and going to dinner. Then he went to dinner, the memories hit him at that moment. The wave, Victor dissolving as blue scales appeared on his arms and his transformation into some kind of black dragon. As Nathan slowly opened his eyes he prayed that the events of last night were a nightmare, a lucid, horribly long, perfectly memorable nightmare. However that hope was dashed as soon as he saw his arms, the massive black muscles with baseball mit like armor plates over his hands.

He tried to stand up, but his new body didn't respond. He assumed that like a baby he didn't know how his body worked yet. He sighed, failing to notice his deeper voice and decided to take it one step at a time. He pushed aside all thoughts of his surroundings, family and friends. "I _can't solve anything until I can at least move,_" Nathan reminded himself.

He started with his hands, behind his natural armor plates he felt that he had three massive clawed fingers. After that he moved his arms and legs, they felt as though they were asleep. Like how your hand felt when you were laying on it and it wasn't getting enough blood.

He then focused on his three new limbs. His wings were sturdy, they had three bones but the rest was cartilage, nothing too off compared to other animals. His new tail was an entirely different story.

"_I have a tail_" Nathan thought, still having trouble believing those words. He was fully convicted this wasn't a dream, the duration of the event and the numbness of his body was more than enough proof.

He could feel his tail was conical, but he couldn't move it much. He could only wiggle the edges, like there was a massive dead weight inside it. He closed his eyes and focused on moving it, frustratingly unable to control it. Then he had a thought and focused on the dead weight in it, like moving your toes by clenching in the front of your foot.

Energy began to surge though his body in an instant, his numb limb's movement instantly improved as a quiet blue glow emanated from inside his tail. As he got shakily to his massive three toed feet, he looked up to see the first rays of light rising in the distance over the white canopies where Notre Dame's spires used to be standing. He had to admit that he was as heartbroken as everyone in Paris he talked to about the fire. The fear that he would never see it in person was shared by his mother. Such a concern seemed trivial now, he then took notice of how empty paris was. By the lack of light he guessed it was around a quarter till seven, sunrise was around a quarter till eight, but on a usual day there were plenty of people walking around by now.

"Am I all alone?" Nathan yellled, hoping for a response. His question nearly died in his throat as he heard his new voice, it was gruff and deep, like a powerlifter with a smoking problem.

For a whole agonizing moment, Nathan was surrounded by silence, was he the only living thing in Paris, in the world? As absurd as the thought sounded, after what had already happened Nathan wouldn't dismiss anything.

Out of a nearby apartment's balcony, a blast of fire erupted from a bedroom. From within the inferno, a new creature appeared. It was a bipedal, primate-like creature that was primarily reddish-brown with sections of white fur on its chest, head, and lower legs. Several gold markings adorn its body: swirled, circular ones on its knees and shoulders flame-shaped ones on the back of its hands, and a stripe around its back that forms two swirls on its chest. It's head was tipped with a massive flame that looked like a mane.

One by one the creatures arrived on the scene, they were screaming and panicked. Clearly they had all just woken up in the same situation at Nathan, however Nathan noticed that while one or two of the creatures were identical to each other. None were nearly as large or imposing as he was.

"_I need to get out of here"_ Nathan thought as chaos ensued around him. Some were accidentally blasting fire or electricity everywhere they went, too scared to control themselves.

He ran to the train station on instinct, he found that his body despite all of its muscle mass wasn't very fast. He could only move at a light jogging pace, he wasn't tired, he just felt cumbersome. Thanks to the electricity from his tail he knew he had the motor coordination, something wasn't right.

He stopped running, and then an absurd thought entered his mind. He was a dragon with wings, could he fly?

He internally chuckled but decided to try, focusing on the energy of his tail, he channeled it to his wings and jumped. To his shock he began to fly, taking off into the sky, the green French countryside sprawling out underneath him. it was clear that whatever he was, he was a fast flier.

Flying was incredible, the feeling of the wind rushing by him was intoxicating, his tail was generating electricity so powerful and concentrated that it was generating an anti-gravity field, like the field a maglev train moved on but in a bubble around him, that's why his wings were smaller than needed, they were only needed for tight turns and steering. He tried to turn as sharp as as he could and then hover, but he was distracted on thinking through his actions enough to lose focus on his tail and began to plummet back to earth. He fell almost 1,000 feet, landing in a field and creating a deep crater.

As he got to his feet, he realized he was unharmed, his body was durable for sure. He decided to try flying again, temporarily forgetting his concerns and desperate to feel the air rushing by him.

He practiced flying for a few hours before he got hungry, then a new realization hit him, what would he eat? He had large sharp teeth, so he had to be a carnivore, but if everyone was a creature now, what would he eat?

Nathan almost gaged at the thought of it, even if they were something else now, he still considered it cannibalism. He decided to try something else, he flew to Tours and found a supermarket. The door was comically small, he simply went through the roof, it collapsing from his weight as he landed on it. He lumbered to the freezer isle found a few packages of steak. The store was empty, so everyone else was probably just eating what they had in their cabinets. After that he simply flew to the countryside and ate the meat raw after it thawed. Surprisingly it tasted like a room temperature hamburger, his new body's taste buds didn't mind it at all.

With the sun going down, Nathan found an opening in the trees by flying over the Ardenne forest. The grass was soft enough to sleep and he was tired. While he had seen other creatures, he had no desire to talk, considering what caused all of this madness, he probably knew as much as anyone else. His plans were simple for now, practice flying and find his top speed, then he'd fly home to Buffalo.

**Author's note-thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Chaos**

* * *

**Alissa**

* * *

As a woman regained consciousness, she saw the sun high in the sky. The events of the morning came back to her, she had woken up before dark and gotten coffee at Starbucks, then she was stopped at a stoplight one block away from Senator Joseph office when a bright purple flash knocked her out. She felt so cramped, after she thrashed enough the door on her car blew off and a massive white dragon tumbled into the streets. There were similar abandoned cars around the area but her car's interior was completely crushed. There were dozens of strange creatures around her, but even worse was her new body.

She was in shock at her new appearance. a white-colored, bipedal creature with draconic, avian and mammalian traits. A long, voluminous wispy mane streamed out from the upper side of her snout and outwards from her head. Her face was fringed with spiky features, and it had a small, pointed extension below the chin. She had massive, three-clawed feet and more feather-like protrusions over her body along with a massive white tail.

The worst part of the transformation for the woman was her hands or rather lack of hands. Her new body had slender arms that flared out into massive white wings with four claws on the leading edge. Her arms felt so heavy from the new weight on them. She only hoped that she wasn't the only person who was now this size. She noticed how tall she was next to the remains of her car, she was way off the ground and guessed that she must have been a little over ten feet tall.

As soon as she realized her height, she timidly looked down and saw a few tatted scraps of her clothes on the ground, including the jacket that she had bought for her internship at Senator Joseph's office, pants and shoelaces. Most horrifyingly on her massive torso was the edges of her shirt and bra! She realized that she was naked in the middle of downtown D.C!

She freaked out, releasing a high pitched shriek. It didn't matter that she had feathers over her skin, an aura of fire swirled around the Reshiram as her tail howled like a jet engine, with a blast of fire, she shot off into the air, reaching the cloud layer in seconds. She sucked in the cold air and after a short time flying north, she finally stopped hyperventilating.

"I'm ok, I'm ok" Alissa repeated aloud, suddenly noticing her new voice. It was slightly deeper but far more feminine and airy then it used to be.

Alissa Hathaway was from Buffalo New York as well, she had dated Nathan for two years prior to graduating high school. They had ended their relationship on good terms. With Nathan staying in New York for college and Alissa going to Missouri, they had decided to go their separate ways, both promising to keep in touch and meet up after college.

After two years of studying education, Alissa had scored an internship in D.C with Senator Joseph, she was enjoying every minute of it. The last time she had talked to Nathan, he was waiting on his flight to France. He had promised to bring her a souvenir so that she knew he was thinking of her.

She wasn't thinking of her past however, she was far too focused on how high up she was. The cities looked like miniature models below her. Alissa had never told anyone, but she was deathly afraid of heights. Like most rational fears, however, it depended on how high up she was and what she was in. Buildings and airplanes weren't a problem, but out in the open, high in the sky, that was a problem.

She decided to focus on getting to the ground first, she didn't know what kind of creature she was, but she was probably large enough to show up on the radar, breaching Washington D.C's no-fly zone was a good way to get blown out of the sky by military jets.

She focused on the energy of her tail and pushed it out of her tail, then she used her wings to steer and flew north, landing in a quiet field. She looked to the east and saw the dome of Pennsylvania's capitol building.

In her panic attack, she had flown over 100 miles from DC and she didn't even know it until now!

As she trotted into town she noticed how awkward it felt to walk, her new form was just designed for flying, quite a hindrance for someone with a fear of heights.

There were many creatures as strange or even more so in town, there were no humans at all. Based on the massive flash of purple and the lack of people in both D.C and Harrisburg. Alisa reached the insane but logical conclusion that everyone had been changed like her.

She was snapped from her thoughts when a small creature the size of a dog came up to her, at least she assumed it was that size. With how huge she was now it was hard to tell.

The creature looked like a mix between a fox and a porcupine. It was covered in yellow fur with a spiky fringe around its tail and a white ruff around its neck. Its ears were large and pointed with black interiors, and its eyes and small nose were black. It has slender legs and small paws, each with three toes and a pink paw pad.

"Hey, can you understand me?" The Jolteon asked in a high feminine voice.

"Y-yes, I can" Alisa responded slowly.

"Really, but I'm from Mexico and I don't speak English. I'm Romona by the way" the Jolteon , now identified as Romona introduced.

"Well, I don't speak Spanish, I'm Alisa," the Reshiram said slowly. Every word out of her mouth came out as awkward, unsure how to behave in this situation.

"Well, you seem really strong compared to other creatures I've seen. Can I stick with you for a bit?" Romona begged the desperation in her voice apparent.

"_It never hurts to have a partner to be in crisis situations, especially one with so many unknowns," _Alisa thought, considering her options.

"Sounds good, follow me but don't walk too fast" Alisa requested.

The pair then walked towards the capitol building, hopefully, a senator or someone there knew something about the situation...


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4- Revelation**

* * *

**Alisa**

As Alissa entered the capitol building, she saw about 10 creatures in the center of the rotonda, with a crowd watching them from all sides. They were the senators who were on duty at the time, trying to calm the crowd, with limited success.

She and Romona decided to ignore the gathering, with what the senators were saying it was clear knew nothing that they didn't already know. Thankfully a giant white dragon attracted no attention. As they continued walking they noticed that some of the wave's victims were just now waking up. It seemed as though if you were a smaller creature you were out longer.

"Where are we going?" Alisa asked as she awkwardly squeezed through another door. Thankfully the Pennsylvania capitol's constant double doors allowed her to get through with some help from Romona.

"The senator I was coming to meet, he has some overseas connections and is pretty informed on international affairs. Hopefully he has some idea of how widespread this is" Romona responded as they came to a door at the end of the hall. The golden plac said Senator Rhyme.

Romona walked up to the door and paused, realizing she was shorter than the doorknob and more importantly had no hands.

"Let me" Alisa said as she reached out her wing, after some difficulty she managed to grab the knob with the claws on the leading edge of her wings and twisted the knob.

However she underestimated her own strength and pulled the entire door off its hinges, along with the fame and a decent chunk of the drywall.

"Sorry" Alisa apologized.

Romana shook her head and entered the office, the only thing of note was an empty business suit in the desk's chair.

Before Alisa could speculate anything she noticed a lump in the pile of clothing, about the size of a dog, it flailed around for a moment before a bird like creature the size of a bald eagle plopped onto the floor with wide eyes, a man's glasses hanging on its torso.

He had red-orange plumage covering his head, wings, and most of its chest and back before tapering off into a flame pattern. His underside and hindquarters were gray and the tips of its long, pointed wings were black. Orange spots speckled his underside. Large yellow talons extend from the shaggy feathers on his legs. He had a pointed crest atop its head and black-and-yellow mask-like markings around his eyes. His black beak is hooked with a yellow cere. He also had long black tail feathers marked with three yellow V-shapes. His tail ended in two points and had another feather sticking out of the base on each side, resembling the fletching on the end of an arrow.

"What the hell!" The Talonflame exclaimed.

"Senator Rhyme?" Ramona asked, a mix of surprise and relief in her voice.

"Do I know you?" Charles Rhyme asked, just now noticing how low to the ground he was.

"It's me, Romona Faciles" The Jolteon explained as the senator slowly stood up, shaking on his new talons as his glasses fell to the floor.

"But how are you speaking English?!" Charles asked, stunned at how perfectly he understood her.

"Whatever did this changed our speech patterns, everyone speaks the same words" Alisa explained, she was a way back due to the size of the senator's office. She had done enough damage already.

Rhyme jumped back, his wings flapping wildly at the sight of the huge white dragon.

"Relax, she's ok" Romona assured him.

Senator Rhyme regained his composure and looked at his new body, after a moment he fluttered up to his desk, only managing to stay airborne for a second.

"Did you hear anything from your contacts overseas last night?" Romona asked.

The senator looked at his computer and saw a few sparks in the USB ports, he pecked at the side of the computer tower and the side panel fell off revealing a mess of fried circuitry .

Rhyme sighed and said "Well, yes and no, around 5:45 last night. I called my friend, the U.S ambassador at the Paris embassy to see how his day has been but he didn't pick up. His answering machine wasn't online. The phone number was completely deactivated" Rhyme began.

Alisa and Ramona listened intently as he continued his story.

"I dismissed it as nothing, he had probably lost his phone or been pickpocketed, it was 11:30 local time but he was always up late. However I was concerned when my friend at Mitsubishi in Tokyo didn't pick up later that evening. It was 9:45 AM in Japan so he surely would be awake by then. Judging by my computer here, I'd say whatever did this doubled as an electromagnetic pulse and deactivated all technology everywhere it hit. Considering the silence from Tokyo and Paris within a few hours of each other. I'd say it happened everywhere" Rhyme concluded.

"Do you think President Ellis is ok?" Alisa asked.

"With communications down worldwide who knows, he was on Air Force one flying back from Turkey. Last I heard he was about an hour from Washington" Rhyme admitted as he looked at his new wings, trying to figure out how to use them.

"So does that mean the Vice President takes over?" Romona guessed.

"Maybe? The V.P was in D.C last night but who knows what he turned into" Rhyme confessed.

"So what's the government's next step then?" Alisa questioned.

Rhyme shook his head and said "you don't seem to grasp the concept, the term government kinda doesn't apply anymore. With everyone changed from creatures as small as me or as big as you, they'll be a power grab. Whoever's is the biggest and strongest now will just take over whatever territory they want"

"What about stuff like nuclear weapons and military bases?" Romona asked.

"All of the soldiers could be birds like me! How are they supposed to hold a rifle and defend something? As for nuclear arsenals, an EMP wave would've deactivated everything, disabling the warheads or just sealing them in their silos!" Rhyme yelled.

He was upset about his new body and the endless questions for sure, but he was most irritated about how everything had come undone at once. Given the facts he had learned from his two guests, every government in the world would be in tatters or completely gone.

There was only survival for now…..


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5-Experimentation**

* * *

**Nathan**

* * *

"Holy hell!" Nathan exclaimed as a bolt of blue lightning flew skyward, dispersing into black clouds that began to lightly rain.

After just two days of training the Ardennes forest, Nathan was getting a grasp on how much power was truly at his disposal. He had learned how to use his tail's energy to shoot lightning bolts. They didn't fire from his hands or mouth as he had expected, rather he just summoned a ball of electricity around him and channeled it through the air.

Thanks to his time flying in last night's thunderstorm, he was able to pick up the electricity in the clouds, the same feeling allowed him to channel his power through any type of air now.

As for his current goal of flying home, it was becoming feasible far faster than he thought. The first time Nathan had pushed his speed, he had made a sonic boom and leveled the trees in about a mile radius around him. That is why he began practicing higher up, no damage to do up there.

Speaking of high up, Nathan hadn't seen a single airplane in the two days since the wave, he had seen some bird-like creatures at lower altitude but that was it. He assumed that with everyone transformed, no one was flying planes.

After one more lightning test he took off into the clouds, feeling the water flowing down his scales, his goal was to see how fast he could fly to Moscow. He had found that big ben was still working, a short hop over the channel revealed it was just about 2:00 in London. He got back to Calais 5 minutes later. He pushed up to 10,000 feet, high above the cloud layer. With a roar of his tail's power, he began to dive, clouds forming on wings creating a Mach cone. Just before he punched through the cloud cover, he left the sound barrier behind him with a deafening boom.

As he skirted under the clouds, he pushed more energy from his tail behind him, a trail of blue energy in his wake. The land racing below him at incredible speeds, he made sure to plot a course northeast, using the sun's position as a guide. As he continued on he mused on home, wondering how his mother and father were after all of this, was Alisa ok? He had talked to a fish-like creature in the rhine river yesterday and had discovered that if you were turned into a water breather, you woke up in the nearest body of water.

The fish creature was actually a german farmer originally, that's how Nathan discovered the lack of a language barrier. According to him, his trips up and down the river while testing his body has shown that everyone spoke the same language now, while some water creatures needed water constantly, some were able to breathe on land as well as submerged.

Nathan was snapped from his thoughts by a rush of cold air, he looked below to see the snowy trees of Russia below him, it was softly snoring, the icy flakes falling as far as the eye could see.

About ten minutes later Nathan saw the colorful domes of Saint's Basil's Cathedral. He circled the area to slow down and landed in the red square, catching the notice of two different creatures nearby.

One looked like a two-legged brown bear, not as beefy as a real bear but with huge five-clawed hands, a tan ring of fur was on its chest. The other resembled a walrus. It was primarily blue, with thin, white rings around its neck and lines on its fan-like tailfin. There were two long, ivory tusks in its upper jaw. It had around the snout and yellow eyes, and large tufts of white fur about its face and neck. Its four short legs had long flippers instead of feet. Thankfully their eyes were one of curiosity rather than anger.

"Where are you from?" the Ursaring asked in a deep Russian accent.

"From America, but I was studying in Paris when all this happened" Nathan replied casually, trying his best to not come off as intimidating.

"Ah, my name's Nikolai, Ivan and I were soldiers here, we're from Siberia" The Walrein introduced as he dragged himself closer on his flippers.

"How are you here, I thought everyone who was water-based was relocated automatically?" Nathan asked, trying to be as formal as he could.

"He ended up in the Volga, which wasn't too far from our base" Ivan clarified.

"I get it now, do either of you have the time?" Nathan requested.

"Clocks are gone but based on the sun, it is about…..a quarter till six" Nikolai guessed.

Nathan's red eyes went wide, he knew the time zones, he had traveled over 2,700 miles in less than an hour.

"Where did you come from, just now? You seem surprised" Ivan asked, notice his surprise at the mere time of day.

"I left Calais about 45 minutes ago, I knew I was fast, but not THAT fast" Nathan admitted

"That's fast American, well try not to go off course. At that speed, you can be in the wrong place before you know it" Nikolai warned.

"Thanks for the advice, I'll be on my way then," Nathan said before revving up his tail again. The two Russians gave him a nod before he blasted off into the clouds again.

Thankfully his mathematics and geography classes were serving him well, if he had gotten to Moscow in 45 minutes, he was flying at about Mach Five, or in simplistic terms, 3836 miles per hour. At that speed, he'd make it home from Calais to Buffalo in a little under an hour.

Nathan had no reason to stay in Europe any longer, he wanted to check on his family and hometown. Regardless of his desire to leave, after a few more practice speed flights the sun was going down. Nathan had no desire to fly over the ocean at night, without the sun to guide him he could end up anywhere at his top speed.

He raided the same supermarket for a meal and then laid down in the same forest clearing. He decided that tomorrow he would fly home and see his hometown for the first time in months.

He could only hope that Buffalo and thus his parents were intact…...


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Odyssey**

* * *

**Nathan**

Nathan was sitting on the beaches of Normandy as the sun rose, he had woken up early and flown here under the cover of darkness. With his tail going at the lowest output needed to fly he had gotten here in an hour.

"Time to go home, I just wish it wasn't under these circumstances" Nathan muttered.

The first rays of sunlight began to peek over the horizon. The sky was painted in a magnificent shade of pinkish-purple, a truly beautiful sight in spite of the location's history.

Nathan paused and considered this place's significance, this beach was once soaked with the blood of over 425,000 men. Men who fought for their ideas, or at least the ideals of who they served. With how much the world had changed now, would their sacrifices be remembered in 50 years, 100 years? Would the world's new state force their story to fade from memory?

As Nathan slowly got out of the sand, he nearly fell down, his new body's weight wasn't particularly good for unstable ground, he took one last look back at the French countryside before revving up his tail and blasting off into the sky, after 5 minutes of flying northwest he pushed his tail to full power and created a massive sonic boom, a huge splash of water behind him.

With the sound barrier breached, Nathan gained some altitude, noticing a huge amount of sea life below him, creatures of all sizes and shapes were swimming on the surface and just below it

"_I wonder if anyone took up home in deeper waters, how much variety in water creatures are there now_?" Nathan pondered.

Nathan was snapped from his thoughts by a flash of light in front of him. He slowed down, and after checking his position to the Sun, he realized that this thunderstorm was right between him and his decided landing Zone in New Orleans.

Against his better judgment, he flew into the storm at an angle, trying to go up and over it. As he flew through the dark haze, he saw lightning flashes around him. Despite his new body's ability to literally create lightning, it still spooked him. Regardless of his new form, he still had a human's natural instinct to be scared of lightning.

He finally punched through the clouds, giving him an incredible view of the black maelstrom below him. He flew over it for about 20 minutes before he saw New Orleans on the horizon.

He spotted his landmark, the fountain in front of Saint Louis Cathedral, a few more creatures were milling about in the square. Careful not to cause a panic, he slowly floated down and landed. The group of creatures turned to him with a mix of fear and curiosity.

"I'm from Buffalo, I'm just getting back from my semester abroad before this happened" Nathan explained slowly.

Everyone seemed to take that at face value, they shrugged their shoulders, if they had normal shoulders and went back to their business. Some were trying to ask about the whereabouts of their loved ones or get information. It was abundantly clear how little everyone truly knew.

Nathan then heard his large stomach rumble, he was hungry from flying at top speed for so long. He decided to ask around, surely someone knew where a market or convenience store was. After about five minutes of looking around, he picked out a creature that was alone and seemed harmless enough to talk to.

The creature sitting on a bench was a white, bipedal creature that looked closer to humans than most. It's lower body consisted of rounded hips with strong legs. It had a thin green torso with sharp, red horns sticking out of its chest and back. Its arms were shaped like swords with extendable blades in its elbows. Its head resembled a gladiator's helmet with a white face, red eyes, and a teal head crest. It has spikes on the sides of its face and a neutral expression.

"Hey, you don't happen to know where I can get something to eat do you?" Nathan asked.

The Gallade took a moment to seize the new arrival up as if he was considering something very important, Nathan felt too awkward to say anything.

"I believe I do, come, boy," The Gallade said as he motioned to follow.

"Ok" Nathan replied slowly, surprised by his casualness.

As Nathan awkwardly stomped behind him, he finally broke the silence and asked "what's your name?"

"Name's Charles Ramos, and you?" the Gallade, now identified as Charles asked.

"Nathan, Nathan Aldrich, how did you know I was younger?" Nathan asked.

"When you live as long as I have, you pick up on things" Charles replied.

"Wait how old are you?" Nathan asked, confused at his choice of words.

"I'd be 97 in September, served in world war two if you'd believe it" Charles replied casually.

Nathan was shocked by those words, but they made more sense as they came to a building with a sign that said "shady acres retirement home"

The building was huge, a square building with gardens and glass hallways. There were clearly several different wings of living quarters and doctor's offices. However, every window was dark and a few were shattered despite how new the building looked. It looked like a place out of a b-list apocalypse movie

"Sure it's safe in there?" Nathan asked.

Charles chuckled and replied "everyone left, people like me could get up and walk again, the workers ran off too so there's plenty of food in the freezer. Wait here"

Nathan gave him a nod before Charles dashed off into the building, moving as fast as a track athlete, hopefully, the place had some meat left.

As Nathan waited for his new acquaintance to return, he mulled over what he had learned. Apparently those who were older were just as fit as any other creature now, meaning one of two things. Either their new bodies aged far slower than humans, or that everyone's age was essentially reset from their transformation.

He wondered how his parents were affected…..


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

**Reunion**

* * *

As Nathan landed in his parent's neighborhood he was on edge, they were holes blown in houses, and some were gone altogether. He gave a sigh of relief as he saw his parent's house, untouched by the damage around the cul de sac.

As he awkwardly stomped up to the door he was sweating, or rather small sparks were shooting off his body. He took a deep breath and tapped on the door.

The door shuddered for a moment, as if something was banging up against the bottom, it finally opened revealing another new creature.

It was a quadruped, canine creature that was mainly black with a long orange snout and an orange underbelly. It had small, red eyes and a black nose. Around its neck is a white band with a small skull-shaped pendant on its throat. There are two white bands on each of its ankles, as well as three rib-like ridges on its back. The creature also had a long, skinny tail with a triangular tip and three clawed toes on each paw. On top of its head were a pair of long, curved gray horns.

The Houndoom took a defensive stance as asked "who are you!"

Nathan instantly recognized his father's voice and said "dad it's me!" forgetting how different his voice was now.

"Who are you!" John Aldrich repeated.

"It's me, Nathan!" The Zekrom responded, causing his father to lean his head.

"Tell me something only Nathan would know…."John requested, still not convinced.

Nathan paused for a moment, considering a convincing response. He gave a toothy smile and said "your first car was a blue Ford Mustang that Uncle Ned drove into a river in Kansas"

John's eyes bulged, he looked Nathan dead in the eyes, finally convinced.

"I'm so glad you're ok!" John said as he buried his head into Nathan's chest, shedding small embers for tears that barely affected Nathan's scales.

Once he regained his composure, John turned around and said "Camille, Nathan's here, he's ok!"

From within the house came another quadrupedal creature resembling a fully-grown lion. While its face, hind legs, torso, and the back of its front legs were blue, much of its body was covered with shaggy, black fur. The fur is longer around the shoulders and the base of the tail and forms a mane on its head. It had yellow eyes with red sclerae, a blunt muzzle, and rounded ears with yellow insides. There were three yellow, half rings on the back of each foreleg. Its long, thin tail was tipped with a yellow four-pointed star.

"Talk about an eventful semester" Camille joked as she walked up to her son.

Nathan was unfortunately reminded of how large he really was, he towered at least 2 feet over their 7-foot tall door frame.

"Well, come around to the back porch, we can talk a little more in the shade" Nathan's father offered.

Beneath the shade of a tall oak tree in his backyard Nathan continued to recount his days before the wave, he offhandedly noticed flowers blooming on the oak tree, ones that he had never seen on any plant, but was far too invested in talking to his parents to dwell on the subject.

As Nathan and his parents continued to talk a sense of dread began to build in his gut. He was so big that he was almost taller than the roof of the porch, how could he possibly live here.

"So, what are you gonna do now?" Camille asked.

Nathan was lost in his thoughts, but that sentence snapped him back to reality.

John noticed Nathan's reaction and immediately put the pieces together.

"You can stay here Nathan, we can work this out" John assured his son.

At that moment, something in Nathan snapped, all of his pent up emotions that he had suppressed for that past 2 weeks boiled over at once.

"Work out...work out WHAT, THAT I'M A GIANT DRAGON, THAT THE ENTIRE WORLD IS IN COMPLETE CHAOS!" Nathan screamed, his new deeper voice only adding to his parents' fear.

"Nathan, calm down" his mother begged.

"WHY? SO I DON'T CAUSE DAMAGE AND GET ARRESTED, POLICE ARE GONE, SCHOOLS ARE GONE, EVERYTHING IS GONE!" Nathan ranted.

Nathan's rage had gotten the best of him, an aura of blue energy swirled around him as his tall's generator whirled to life. Luckily he was a bit of a way back from his parents and his mother was unknowingly attracting and neutralizing any electricity that came too close to them.

With a feral roar, Nathan unleashed all of his electricity into a bolt of lightning shooting hundreds of feet up in less than a second splitting the sky above.

Nathan fell to his knees, tears dripping down his black scales. He looked to his parents and saw nothing but fear in their eyes. They were terrified beyond belief and he had caused it.

Without hesitation Nathan stood up and blasted away, flying away from his parents, too distraught to do anything but run. He flew towards the ocean, unable to even look at his hometown. He would have kept flying if a massive white dragon hadn't pulled up beside him.

Nathan looked over to the new arrival and it instantly felt familiar, as if the creature was one he had known his entire life. In reality, it was his new body's relationship to the other dragon but he had no idea how right he was.

The white dragon motioned for him to land and he did so, far too enamored to keep going.

As he touched down, the other dragon landed right in front of him. He was staring with his mouth slightly open.

"Nathan, close your mouth before a fly comes along," Alisa said.

Nathan knew it was her, her voice was different but still similar enough.

"Alisa?" Nathan asked, more in awe than disbelief.

"Yea, it's been a long time since we saw each other "Ace"," Alisa joked as she remembered Nathan's nickname from high school.

This day was nothing but a rollercoaster of emotions, but luckily for Nathan, he had ended his ride on a positive note...


End file.
